Ducks Mate for Life
by junienmomo
Summary: Starts after So, Good Talk. Luke and Lorelai elope. Rory and Jess help them out.
1. Chapter 1 Hep Cats Drink Jerk Java

Chapter 1 Hep Cats Drink Jerk Java

Jess looked around as he exited the aged red brick building. "Hmph," he thought to himself as he noticed the Jeep was parked right outside the exclusive and trendy coffee shop that was across the street from Truncheon Books. "Should have known there would be a stop for coffee."

He smoothly avoided the nearly non-existent traffic as he jaywalked towards the familiar vehicle.

Luke was just getting out of the driver's seat as Jess approached.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"You OK?"

"Yep. You?"

"Yep."

"Good."

Satisfied that the uncle-nephew relationship was thoroughly caught up, Luke waved Jess to the back seat of the Jeep on the passenger side. Climbing in, the first thing his foot encountered in the close quarters was Rory's outstretched leg.

"Sorry," he offered.

She looked more annoyed than injured, responding with "We should have taken the Prius," as she rubbed her leg.

Luke, hearing this through the open door, squinted and half-scowled before choosing to ignore the statement. Something was bothering Rory; both he and Lorelai had noticed her somber mood. And Jess was clean, but the dark circles under his eyes made him look like crap. Luke briefly wondered how he would prevent an eventual clash between the pair, because nothing was going to spoil this weekend.

Jess origamied himself into a moderately uncomfortable position and pulled the passenger door closed. Since the floor seemed to be completely taken up with Rory's book and snack bags, he heaved his small duffle over the back of the seat and kept his own small tattered backpack on his lap.

The duffle bounced back, mainly because the minuscule space behind the rear seat was stuffed completely full. He finally nudged it into position behind his head. At least he would have a neck support for the trip.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to worship the mighty Java." As Lorelai opened the door, she began an ode to coffee.

"Jess!" she said, pleasantly surprised. "I didn't see you get in. Do you want a coffee or something? I got muffins, too, and a couple of those cookies that the Java Jerk is known for. At least that's what Henrik the barista said. He's not German, is he?"

Jess shook his head. "No thanks, I'm good. And Henrik is Swedish, I think. He's the master upseller at the Jerk. What else did he con you into?"

Setting the cup tray on the passenger seat, she handed a tall paper cup to Luke, one to Rory, and placed the last one in her cup holder. "Tea, coffee, coffee, just as you like it."

Luke nodded his thanks while Rory clutched her cup and stared balefully out her window.

Realizing that her only willing audience was Jess, Lorelai turned to him and smiled sheepishly. "T-shirts and ball caps for everybody, plus this ADORABLE little keychain with a cat drinking coffee."

Rory perked up. "A cat drinking coffee? Did you get one for me?" she asked hopefully.

"You bet I did, sweets. I only got two, because they're not exactly guy gifts, you know."

Rory squealed as she clutched her keychain. "Oh yay, it squeaks!" she exclaimed happily.

"You didn't need to buy gifts," grumbled Luke, filling time with a complaint as he otherwise patiently waited for Lorelai to settle herself in the car.

"Of course I did," she replied calmly, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "Road trips require gifts. You, my friend, are going to look so cute in that T-shirt! There's a little drawing of a cat lounging, and the words over it are 'Hep cats drink Jerk Java.' I can't wait to see you in the diner wearing it."

"Never gonna happen," snickered Jess.

"You had a cup of coffee while you waited for your order, didn't you?" asked Luke as he handed Lorelai one of the many paper napkins that were everywhere in the car.

"It was sad," she said, nodding mournfully. "The barista being trained got someone's order wrong, so I volunteered to get rid of the evidence."

"You left a little evidence behind," said her fiance with a tender smile as he reached over and ran his thumb over her mouth. "There's whipped cream on your upper lip."

Lorelai pouted. "Normally you'd kiss it off."

"Not in front of the kids, dear," he deadpanned, receiving a perfectly harmonized "Thank god" from the two in the back seat.

"You're sure you don't need a coffee, Jess? I can go back in and get you one," offered Lorelai once again.

"Nah," he replied. "I brought something out of the Truncheon beverage bar." He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a bottle holding a clear liquid. "It's called Birch Bark Soda." He frowned at the weird soft drink. "Oh, god, whatever you do, don't hire a vegan office manager. This guy Stuart keeps trying to get us on the vegetarian bus."

Luke raised his eyebrows in astonishment. "Made from birch bark? I heard it's very healthy. Anti-inflammatory or a painkiller or something like that."

"Here you go," said Jess. "My gift to you."

Luke perused the ingredients and nutritional information. Snorting, he handed it back to Jess. "It's got as much sugar in it as a Coca-Cola does. Totally kills any health benefits."

"Lucky you have your Aunt Lorelai," she grinned. "I brought you a Mountain Dew anyway." She whipped it out of her purse, dropped it, then gave it to Jess, adding, "Maybe you want to wait a while before opening it."

"Ready?" asked Luke, scanning the interior to make sure everyone had buckled their seat belts.

"Ready!" agreed Lorelai, tasting her extra tall triple shot caramel pecan latte macchiato.

Luke started the engine, put it in gear, then depressed the clutch again and put his foot on the brake. "Hey," he said, smiling at Lorelai. "Guess what?" For all of the crazy bits Lorelai had made him participate in during her life, he was committed to playing along with this one.

"What?" she replied complacently; only her sparkling eyes showed that she knew what was coming.

"We're getting married."

"Well, yes we are." They leaned in for a sweet kiss.

Rory rolled her eyes and nudged Jess' backpack away from where it had slid onto her side of the seat. "They've been doing that at every single stop we've made since leaving Stars Hollow."

"Great," commiserated Jess. "We should have taken a second car."

"We should have taken the Prius." Rory resumed looking out the window as Luke pulled into traffic.

Nearly simultaneously, Rory and Luke took a sip of their drinks and immediately grimaced.

"Ew!" cried Rory. "Stop the car now, Luke, please?"

He obediently pulled over. "Here's your coffee," he said.

"And here's your tea," she replied.

Drinks exchanged and checked, they drove out of Philadelphia.

* * *

 **A/N:** Wasn't "Guess what?" just the sappiest bit Lorelai ever thought of? Will Luke internally melt down over it? Stay tuned.


	2. Chapter 2 The Pic-a-Nic

Chapter 2 The Pic-a-Nic

* * *

"If you flip that little whatsit, that squeaky noise will stop," offered Lorelai with a useless finger waggle at the dashboard of the Jeep. She smirked as she turned her head away from Luke.

"This one?" asked Luke, flipping a switch suspiciously near the windshield wiper switch, but the Jeep was so old that any text printed on it was long gone, much less any icon, which really didn't matter because Luke hated icons on things when there should have been words. In English.

"Did that work, hon?" she asked without looking up from her brownie which had fascinated her by having so many Reese's pieces that she was able to taste the peanut-buttery goodness in every bite. "I think we should start having Reese's pieces pancakes at the diner."

"Sure," agreed Luke, adding, "We can get rid of the chocolate chips and store them in that jar." He frowned at Lorelai's Jeep's dashboard, certain that it had some personal vendetta against him. "Is the sound gone now?"

"What sound, hon?" she asked absently, nibbling around the edge of the brownie so she could alternate between orange, yellow and brown candies.

"The squeaky sound!" exclaimed her fiancé, who became more certain that weddings caused facial tics as he massaged his left eyelid.

"Ah, oh, no, it's gone. It went away right after I got the brownie out of the Styrofoam flip box." She munched happily away, browsing the free Hep Cat indie artist magazine she'd gotten at the coffee shop. Only the glint in her eye betrayed the fact that she had used the Styrofoam to make the squeaky sound. Suddenly she gasped. "Jess! Look! There's an advertisement for Truncheon Books!"

Jess smirked as he realized that Lorelai was the champion Luke-annoyer; his few pranks like dressing up as Luke or moving an occasional gnome around were nothing compared to the creative artistry that his aunt-to-be exhibited.

"Who's the Wrong Way Corrigan that mapped out his trip?" asked Jess. "You must have driven hours out of your way to pick me up."

"I wanted both of you with us on the trip. Traveling is an important part of the experience. Like Red Vines at town meetings." Lorelai nonchalantly pulled a bag of said vines out of her purse and handed it to Rory. "My wedding, my rules."

"There's a phrase that moved from cute to hackneyed about three minutes after they decided to elope," sighed Rory as she brandished a Red Vine accusingly in the general direction of her mother. "She uses it for everything when she wants to get her way."

"I do not!" cried Lorelai.

"Mom, you used it to get the last slice of pizza."

Lorelai grinned. "And the first."

"And the Sunday funnies," interjected Luke.

"All the important stuff, then?" asked Jess, which Lorelai answered with a smug smile and a nod.

* * *

This was Luke's preferred way to have a picnic. Good sturdy picnic tables, which he made a mental note to ask Rory to use her digital camera to take a picture of so he could make one for the back yard of the Crap Shack, and maybe a couple for the Dragonfly. Solid wooden bench seats, nothing flimsy and foldable with plastic straps, and absolutely no need to sit on the ground.

He squatted under the table, trying to memorize the construction details, when Jess' scuffed and too-well-worn boots came up beside him.

"Hiding from the little woman already, Uncle Luke? Not a good sign," smirked the younger man who looked more like Luke every year. Right before he left Stars Hollow, he had been building muscles with Luke's weights, one of the few activities the two could actually stand to do together. Many evenings after the diner closed, they could be found in the rented garage which had enough space for Luke to leave his free weights out.

Luke groaned and half-growled as he unfolded his still-lithe body into a vertical position. The groaning came from the aches in his bones and joints and the dissatisfaction which induced the growl was from the way Jess' pants hung too loosely on his hips. Even his belt was in two notches from its original position. He'd clearly lost weight after he left.

"Enjoy your smoke?" Luke asked as the scent of cigarette smoke arrived a moment after Jess did. It had been noticeable in the car too, in spite of Jess being freshly showered and having refrained from having his single daily cigarette before he was picked up for the elopement. His jacket had that eternal stale smoke smell, which Luke had never quite been able to get out of Jess' clothes.

"Oh yeah," he replied. "I'm down to one a day."

"Give it up altogether and you might get a little more meat on those bones," grumbled his uncle. "I can help ya go cold turkey again if you want," thinking about how fast those last cigarettes would land in the toilet with no regret whatsoever for the nicotine that would leach into the public water supply.

Jess merely raised a sardonic eyebrow and zipped the pocket shut where he kept his ciggys.

With the same silence that the two men had worked together in the diner, they began unpacking the food that Luke had purchased at the takeout restaurant in the strip mall across the street from the park.

"Got a hankering for potatoes?" Jess chuckled as he emptied one bag with containers of potato salad, mashed potatoes, French fries and curly fries.

"You know the girls," Luke grunted.

"Who knows the girls?" bubbled Lorelai as she came up behind Luke and hugged him around the waist.

"Hungry?" Luke popped the lid off a box of hush puppies and successfully dodged having to admit one of those things that a man should never admit to a woman – that he understood her. First, she would deny that possibility at any cost, and second, she would continue to expect that he could predict and comprehend her every mood.

"You're gonna have to move that food," she commanded inarticulately due to the crumbly goodness of the two hush puppies she'd stuffed into her mouth. "I found a tablecloth."

Jess silently moved the boxes and bags to the bench while Lorelai unfolded a Hello Kitty-emblazoned paper tablecloth. She and Jess engaged in a tug of war briefly as they struggled to decide which end of the too-long table would be kitty-fied.

"Next," she announced, "Shakespeare napkins and Jane Austen plates!"

Jess' eye roll was inevitable, as was his picking up the napkins, which were covered in small text of various sonnets.

She clapped her hands before pulling out a package of plastic cups. "For Lukey, Star Trek cups! Drink enough liquid out of these and you might have to go where no man has gone before," she tittered.

Eating utensils were pulled out of the restaurant bag and Rory dragged herself from the swingset, where she had languished in her self-involvement, drawing abstract patterns with the toe of her shoe in the dirt underneath the swing.

The meal itself passed quickly and with conversation reminiscent of the times in the diner when Lorelai simpered at Luke, Jess paid too much attention to Rory, and Luke gave Lorelai looks of longing whenever he thought no one was looking. The only new thing was Jess kept up with the Gilmore girls when it came to the quantity of food ingested.

"I'm gonna stretch my legs," said Luke who ambled toward the Little League baseball field that was part of the park. A father was trying without success to teach his son to hit a T-ball.

Lorelai carried some empty food containers to the large green trash can. Looking up after about half the trash had been disposed of, she was suddenly mesmerized by Luke.

Mr. Anti-Social himself had started a conversation with the father which resulted in them moving the T-ball stand out of the way and Luke began pitching as dad helped sonny boy try to hit the ball. Miss after miss was finally followed by a brief connection between ball and bat, with the ball hitting the ground a few feet away. Dad and son began jumping up and down with happiness, and even the grumpiest diner owner on the face of the planet pulled out his biggest smile and jogged to home plate to give the new hitter a high five.

Lorelai cheered modestly from her safe position behind the large trash can. Looking at her hands, then the ground, she was surprised to discover that she had committed a littering offense big enough to raise Taylor's blood pressure to ESA space station levels.

She looked at Luke, and began to shake imperceptibly as sadness overwhelmed her. She looked around for an escape route. Every direction was open to her, but none were going to save her. She was going to have to tell Luke the bad news.

Luke, having pitched several more balls to an increasingly successful young batter, glanced in Lorelai's direction. He moved back to the father, shook hands and said goodbye, then went to find out what was wrong with Lorelai. Whatever it was, it was big.

He shook off his concern for Lorelai and reminded himself any day he got to throw a baseball was a good day. And tomorrow, or the next day, Lorelai hadn't been sure that she could pull it off in one day, they were going to get married. And she thought kids would be good; he thought kids would be good. Maybe somewhere in the near future there would be a little baseball player for him to pitch baseballs to every day. Maybe there would even be a little league team in Stars Hollow that wore the Luke's Diner's name across their chests. He could even help coach; after all, he almost made the cut into the minor leagues.

"No way! You do not have those words in your vocabulary!" exclaimed Jess, who remained at the picnic table with Rory. They had gathered all of the Shakespeare sonnet napkins and were competing to see who could rewrite them into the dirtiest language.

"Hey, Shakespeare wrote plenty of bawdy verse," said Rory superciliously. "And my Yale education is giving me a great foundation. I told you about my friends, the Life and Death Brigade, right? Yale has been an enlightening experience in many ways that I cannot tell my mother or Luke about."

"You mean your poor little rich boy Great Gatsby parties? Please. Having conversations without using words with the letter e? Pansy stuff." He reached habitually into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes, forgetting that he'd smoked his last one an hour ago and had no money for more.

Patting his empty pockets, he continued.

"We host poetry slams at the bookstore every six weeks or so. That's where it gets real. We had an Asian Goth transsexual one evening that brought us all to tears. Her father chased her off their property with a shotgun. Then she moved to Philly and began her transition from a man to a woman. Her poems were, well, wow. Pure emotion, pure pain. Stuff you don't read in The New Yorker."

"Ah, so that's what inspired that short story you emailed me a while back," replied Rory. Suddenly gorilla masks, ball gowns and umbrellas did feel hollow compared to the streets that her soon to be cousin walked. Fez suddenly didn't seem so enthralling anymore.

"Whatcha doing?" asked Lorelai as she and Luke approached the table.

Jess eyed the two older people as he felt rather than saw Rory retreat back into her shell.

"Eh," he said, "just cleaning up."

Rory frantically grabbed the improved sonnets and stuffed them into an empty potato salad box, then sidled over to the trash can, her eyes on her mother the whole time. When Lorelai wasn't looking, which was happening frequently as the nervous bride to be was looking all around at everyone and everything except her worried fiancé, Rory snatched a couple of the modified sonnets from the top of the stack and pushed the mustard- and mayonnaise-accented napkins into the pocket of her light blue coat.

The darty-eyed Lorelai knew Luke was worried about her. She knew he was happy after playing baseball with that kid and his dad. She knew he was looking forward to being married. She knew she had said, "Kids would be good." She knew she was going to hate doing what she was about to do to him.

* * *

 **A/N:** Wanted to look at how Rory and Jess perceived their own worlds. Rory's bawdy side was always under the radar a bit, but I think the LDB brought it out a little.


	3. Chapter 3 Dirty Sonnets

Chapter 3 Dirty Sonnets

* * *

"Stretched your legs enough, Gimpy?" asked Jess of Luke as he and Rory surreptitiously exchanged more obscene napkins.

The napkins were now contraband since Rory didn't want her mother to know. And she certainly didn't want Luke finding them, although he didn't really know her handwriting, so she could possibly pass them all off as Jess,' thereby deepening his reputation for corrupting all things Rory. Rory was OK with that. As a matter of fact, Luke yelling at Jess might well be the red herring she needed in order to tell her mother that she had quit Yale.

A cramp had settled into Luke's leg. He scowled at the bench seat of the picnic table where he was stretching it, trying to work out the cramp. It was not cooperating. He snarled back at his nephew. "You're gonna be old one day, too, if lung cancer doesn't catch up with you first."

Lorelai grasped at the straw Luke accidentally gave her. "Old. Yes, that's good. Old. You get to be our age, Luke, and we're just a little too old for some things." Lorelai began her imitation of a bobble-head doll as she tried to get Luke to buy into the "too old" thing.

"Whaddya mean, too old, Lorelai?" Luke groaned as he stood up on two legs again. "Neither of us is even forty yet. The only thing we're too old for is taking crap off over-confident twenty-somethings who need a haircut." Limping to the other side of the table, where Jess sat, he cuffed Jess on the head none too lightly.

"Well, there comes a time when the cutoff shorts need to be relegated to the back yard. Or someone needs to rethink the length of his sideburns." She squinted pointedly at Jess. "Or maybe, sometimes, it's just time to not make any major life changes."

Luke's shields went up instantaneously. Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit. She can't run now, we only have one car. He envisioned her peeling off the rubber on the Jeep's tires as she headed for … where? Where the hell do you run when you've already run away to elope? Maybe he should look up bus schedules. Or maybe they should have taken the Prius.

Tiny fissures spread like wildfire across his heart.

Also recognizing Lorelai's squirming, Rory gaped at her mother. Was she going to run? How could she run from Luke? He was her home, her rock.

Jess silently watched the Lorelai train wreck into Luke's soul.

Luke's face, now ashen except for his blue eyes which blazed with the pain and fear. Fear that they'd gotten so close this time, but still couldn't hold it together.

Lorelai stared at Luke, her love for him and desire to comfort him losing the battle to reach out to him.

He worried that the words, never his friends, would fail him now.

"Lorelai," said Luke shakily, "Which life changes exactly do you not want to make?" He wondered if he would faint when the oxygen in his lungs gave out.

In a fruitless attempt to distract Luke, Rory tossed a handful of sticky napkins in the air, shouting, "Jess wrote dirty poems!"

"Hey!" Jess cried. "Yours are much dirtier than mine! Do you write your mother with that pen?"

Luke reached out and pulled an errant napkin that had somehow attached itself to Lorelai's hair. He puzzled over the handwriting, unable to believe that it was Jess' or that Rory could write verse that dirty. There had to be limits even to her vocabulary, and he was pretty sure these words weren't ones to be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Not that he ever cracked a dictionary; he was just sure it couldn't have been Rory. Then he remembered his whole love life was falling apart.

"Lorelai, please, just tell me what you want," Luke pleaded with her.

"It's not what I want! It's what I don't want! I don't want to disappoint you!" Her concern was sincere.

"Well you're scaring me right now! Scaring is worse than disappointing!" he retorted. "What is it you don't want, then? For god's sake, Lorelai, you're driving me crazy!"

"I almost stole a yacht and I'm dropping out of Yale!" screeched Rory.

Simultaneously, Lorelai confessed, "I don't want any more kids!"

A stunned silence as the four stared at each other, dumbfounded.

"But I bought the Twickham house! You said kids would be good!" Luke yanked his hat from his head and beat it against his thigh.

"Wait, what?" Everyone turned to Rory. "You stole a yacht? You're quitting Yale?"

"You're getting rid of the Crap Shack and moving into the Twickham house?" asked Rory.

"I know!" said Lorelai sadly as the pain washed over Luke's face. "And it broke my heart to see you playing baseball out there today. But I just can't see another round of babies and all that comes with it."

After pondering a moment, Lorelai's expression darkened and she turned to Luke. "You bought the Twickham house? It's huge! And it has a giant hole in the floor. What were you thinking?"

"I'm quitting Yale and I have no home," mumbled Rory sadly.

"I'm thinking that the Twickham house is gonna cut my house repair time in half," grumbled Luke. He looked at Lorelai with a tinge of resentment. "And the space for kids thing," he added truthfully.

"Oh, Luke," said Lorelai, pulling him into a hug. She reached a hand behind her to hold Rory's hand, unfortunately getting a handful of hair instead. Rory shoved her hand away.

Suddenly Lorelai pushed Luke away and turned to Jess. "It's not like you to keep out of the drama. What's your story?"

"I got a contract to publish my book, but I'm flat broke, homeless and I can't afford food, so I can't concentrate enough to even finish editing the damn thing." Jess' defiant look reminded Lorelai of her own defiant teenage period, when she desperately needed help, but no one was there except for her mother, reminding her constantly that she should live like she was the beloved perfect daughter in a 50's sitcom. She pushed away the recognition that her own beloved perfect daughter was no longer so perfect. She was a yacht-stealing felon. She'd deal with Rory in a bit. Jess' situation was more desperate.

"Ok, so now we know what we have to do," said Lorelai calmly. "We need to feed Jess again." Picking up her purse, she started across the street toward the ice cream store, her heels, which were completely inappropriate for the park and a picnic, betraying the wobbly feeling she felt in her heart.

* * *

 **A/N:** Short, noisy, everyone's unhappy.


	4. Chapter 4 Criminal Minds

Chapter 4 Criminal Minds

* * *

"Huh. Guess you never thought you had the good kid when it came to Rory and me, did ya, Uncle Luke?"

Jess and Luke trailed behind Lorelai as she imperiously led her little band to the ice cream store.

"Shut up," said his uncle, discombobulated from Lorelai's sudden baby reversal, Jess' poverty, and whatever the heck was going on with Rory.

Luke watched the ground as they walked, but didn't miss seeing Jess look at Rory frequently as she followed her mother at a short distance. They couldn't quite make out what Rory was mumbling under her breath, but he thought he heard the word Prius.

"What's up with her? What's about this yacht?" asked the scrawny young adult.

"One bonehead maneuver at a time," growled Luke. "You're up first. She's on deck, and Lorelai's warming up. This is the damndest, most screwed up family I ever saw. Gives me a whole new perspective on Liz and TJ."

He suddenly stopped and faced Jess, who took a step back to create some distance.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Jess? You know I'm there for you. Homeless? Starving? Are you kidding me? I thought you heard me last year when I said I'd be there for you. Why didn't you call?"

Jess shrugged. "It's only been bad a few weeks. I was busy writing my book, then selling it, then editing started, and things just kinda got out of hand."

Lorelai turned as she reached the sidewalk in front of the ice cream shop and waited for Rory as she moped along by herself. She looked at Luke, who was in full-rant stance: legs spread-eagled, hands flying like bats confused by wind turbines as he lectured Jess.

Rory turned and dispassionately watched with her for a moment. "Do we need to save Jess?" she asked.

"Nah," said Lorelai. "He's keeping out of the way pretty well. And if Luke should connect once or twice, it would probably be good for him." With that she flounced into Emmylou's Ice Cream Emporium.

A lot was settled by the time Jess and Luke joined Rory and Lorelai at their table in the ice cream shop. Jess had agreed to accept cash and a check from Luke, and promised to let him know if things ever got that bad again. Lorelai had ordered for everyone, and soon after the men were seated, she and Rory split a ten scoop extravaganza.

"Eat," commanded Lorelai to Jess, who had been given a large banana split.

Luke looked up at the picture board which showed the main offerings, then eyed his dish warily. "What the heck is spaghetti ice cream? Sounds disgusting."

"It's a child's treat, babe."

"It would be practically child abuse to force a kid to eat something like this." He shut down all of his social skills like talking as he realized that, thanks to Lorelai's latest profession, punishing his future kid was never even going to be a possibility.

"It's your favorite vanilla, hon, and there are plain nuts on top. I even had them crush fresh strawberries for the sauce instead of the really good sweet sauce they normally put on."

He said nothing, causing his fiancée to sigh. It was not a good sign when Luke shut down. But there were other priorities. Jess' and Rory's problems hadn't been discussed yet, plus her own ice cream was melting, at least that part that wasn't being wolfed down by Rory.

"So, Jess," she began before Luke's mumbling under his breath became louder than Rory's mumbling under her breath as Lorelai caught the words 'if you don't want kids, do you even want to get married anymore?'

She softly petted his scruffy cheek, which she had carefully trimmed the day before so the wedding photos would show exactly the right amount of sexy shadow without entering Grizzly Adams territory. Then she gave one slightly hard swat, saying, "We'll get to you when we get to you." Luke rubbed his cheek more from surprise than pain. Lorelai added after a beat, "And yes." She tapped on his ice cream bowl and pointed at him to get eating.

Lorelai directed her take-no-crap manager persona, the one that actually got Michel off his ass, and arched an eyebrow at Jess.

"I'm eating! I'm eating!" he said, waving a maraschino cherry at her.

"You need money," she stated, sounding more like Richard Gilmore than Rory ever imagined she could.

"Got it covered," he replied in all his Jessness.

"Food?" she joined his staccato pace.

"Got it covered."

"Place to sleep?"

"Got it covered."

"Just where are you getting this money and bed that you didn't have ten minutes ago?" Lorelai knew stubborn when she saw it, and it was like looking in a mirror at the moment.

"Your fiancé."

She beamed at Luke. "Sometimes we really are Boris and Natasha, working in perfect sync. Good job, Natasha," she complimented teasingly.

"Moose and squirrel," came the grumbly response from the spaghetti ice cream eater, deliberately avoiding the Natasha insult. He still wanted to get married tomorrow.

All heads snapped to Luke.

"What?" he said, offended, "I know stuff. We're more like Rocky and Bullwinkle."

Lorelai chortled with delight, as she bounced closer on the booth's seat, giving him a rum-raisiny kiss.

Rory's stomach started to hurt, and not from the ice cream. She was up next and she hadn't come close to having enough ice cream to survive disappointing her mother.

"How's my little felon doing?" asked Lorelai. "Huh. Always thought I'd use that term to describe Jess, not my precious loin fruit."

"I'm not a felon. I almost stole a yacht, not I DID steal a yacht. Why are you selling the Crap Shack?"

"I'm not selling the Crap Shack!" protested Lorelai. She turned to Luke. "Why did you buy the Twickham house?"

Luke snorted despondently. "Apparently I'm taking up gardening. It was gonna be for the kids or the plants, but that's a solved problem now, isn't it?"

Lorelai frowned at him. Tedious, resentful Luke was not one of her favorite Lukes. She knew he'd come around, but she hadn't yet had the chance to talk him into acceptance, because, after all, grand theft yacht takes priority over not having kids that they might not even be able to have.

But this instantiation of resentful Luke was instigated by her and she knew she would have to deal with it. Soon.

"Well, that's good," said Rory. "I need a place to stay, so when you guys move into the Twickham house, I'll move into the Crap Shack."

"You already live at the Crap Shack," commented Luke. "You live there with us. You're just gone most of the time at Yale."

Lorelai drew a quick breath. Once Rory began speaking, Luke dropped everything he'd been moping about and focused on her with "Dean in a headlock" intensity. Caring for Rory and taking care of Rory. One of the many reasons she loved him.

"I'm not going back."

Lorelai's head reached whiplash speed as Rory became defiant. "Not going back to … Ol' Missouri? My Old Kentucky Home? The Future?"

"I'm not going back to Yale."

"You can forget all about that idea, Missy!" All heads turned toward Luke, since everyone thought he said it. Except he didn't. A father at a nearby table was arguing with his fourteen year old daughter about the temporary tattoo on her arm that she wanted to change into a permanent one.

Still, it covered the only rational response to Rory's insane idea.

Rory clutched her purse as if her work notebook contained therein would jump out and accuse her like Mitchum did of not having "it." That notebook was filled with what she thought was "it." She'd done massive research on Mitchum Huntzberger, trying to understand him so she could impress him. She'd quizzed Logan pre-coital until he pleaded for respite. Turns out, Mitchum Huntzberger's likes and dislikes were a real sexual turnoff for his son. She had brainstormed every profile question she could, trying to understand all the facets of him, because she was sure that one day Mitchum would be as impressed as all get-out by her encyclopedic knowledge of all things Huntzberger.

Her mind flashed back to the moments before Mitchum identified the "it" that Rory was missing. She had trailed him through the office, obsequiously trying to meet his every need. She sat silently as he waited for his meeting to start, and unknowingly threw away her career at Huntzberger Inc.

Frequently it's the questions you don't ask that get you into trouble. And the question she completely missed, that Mitchum was sitting there waiting for her to ask in some form or another, was "What will it take to be successful in the Huntzberger empire?"

Rory fretted, "I have no career. I have no plan. I don't want to waste Grandpa's money. I don't want to fritter away my college like the Life and Death Brigade does with their gorilla masks and In Omnia Paratus."

"Well don't!" cried Lorelai. "Go to Yale and study journalism anyway! Don't let any billionaire jerk tell you you can't!"

Lorelai mangled three napkins and the little plastic clown spoon that she'd sneaked from the counter as she ordered their ice creams. "I still can't understand what you see in that smarmy Logan. He's his father all over again, except for the ambition and work ethic."

"He's not his father, Mom. I really care about him." Her mind flashed to Jess' last proclamation to her, and realized that Logan had easily and completely replaced her feelings for Jess. "He might be the one," she added softly.

Luke's heart hit the ground as he thought of his stepdaughter-to-be. A billionaire's son is the love of her life? Lorelai mulls over a job offered by some big shot corporate guy who wants to buy her inn, and her daughter's going to marry a boy who will be a billionaire one day. He pushed thoughts of him not being enough out of his head.

"Rory, sweets," continued her mother. "Logan induced you to steal a yacht! You, my perfect angel daughter, who never stole a thing or committed a crime in her life."

A pink-cheeked Rory corrected Lorelai. "Except for corn starch. And Cocoa Puffs. And the eggs. We took the Yale mattress without making arrangements. And we weren't exactly on the right side of the law when we tested so many cakes at Weston's without intending to buy any."

"Eggs? Cereal? Corn starch? Well geez, I always figured Jess was the one harassing Taylor," commented Luke, still finding it nearly impossible to imagine Rory pilfering those things from Doose's.. "Looks like I was wrong." He chuckled.

"It's the eyes," added Lorelai. "She could get away with murder if she wanted to."

Rory rolled her eyes, while Jess knitted his eyebrows and became very quiet, trying to process this new information about his ex-girlfriend, soon to be cousin.

She unfolded her paper napkin on her lap and calmly looked at each person in turn, with an expression that Lorelai knew all too well. Lorelai shuddered as this young Emily Gilmore looked her in the eye, then shrugged her shoulders.

"Anyway, it's no big deal. It was my idea to steal a yacht. Logan tried to talk me out of it. And when I insisted on doing it anyway, and we got caught, he managed to talk our way out of an arrest. All because his family knows the family of the people who own the boat."

Her family looked at her as if she really were Emily Gilmore. Rory stamped her foot in frustration.

"C'mon, Luke, back me up here! Remember how everyone blamed Jess for the accident, when I was the one who told him to not go back to the diner!"

Luke opened his mouth before he had a clue of what to say that wouldn't upset one of the other three. "Ah, um, Rory..." he began.

"What the hell is so bad about your life that made you want to commit grand larceny?" sneered Jess.

"Because I don't have it!" she cried.

"Don't have what?" puzzled Lorelai. She'd busted her butt, given up so much, just so Rory could have whatever she wanted.

Rory armed herself with more paper napkins as she explained how Mitchum first gave her a job, but never encouraged her or even told her what he expected. The tears didn't come, though, not even when at the part when he said she was more suited to be a secretary than a journalist.

They didn't come, either, when Lorelai started a rant on Rory's talents and how those rich Hartford types were always bent on tearing others down.

Both laughter and a few tears broke through when Jess summed matters up in a way only he could.

"Why in the world are you even listening to this guy? He's basically Paris with a billion dollars and a dick."

"Probably a tiny one," muttered Luke. Lorelai's bark of laughter at Luke's rare public profanity got everyone at the table tittering.

"What do you say if we get back on the road?" asked Lorelai. "We've still got a wedding to throw." She grinned at her fiancé. "Even if it's just a tiny one."

Twenty minutes and one to-go coffee into the drive, Jess blurted, "You devil-egged my car!" Then the Jeep erupted into a cacophony of laughter, accusations and denials.

* * *

 **A/N:** A tweak here and there to canon. It was always weird that Logan couldn't talk them out of trouble over the yacht thing.


	5. Chapter 5 Heartspace

Chapter 5 Heartspace

"Lorelai! Darling! I still can't believe this is really happening!" The impeccably dressed man stood on the porch of the elegant Pocono Rendezvous Inn, hands clasped expectantly. "Come here! Let me hug you. It's been far too long."

She bounced up the stairs and flung herself into the man's arms.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed, squeezing his metrosexually muscular shoulders tightly. "I can't believe you're not still that skinny kid from ten years ago with a huge crush on Michel."

"Ah, Michel. Such a sweetheart. I adore him still, but c'est la vie." Corbett shrugged his shoulders. "He was always the kindest, sweetest person, but I'm much happier with Trent. We are, how to say it, of one mind?"

"Enough of that, you," she laughed. "We both know you were born and raised in Hartford, two streets away from me. Your mother's in the DAR and you've never even been to French Canada, much less France."

As a cadre of bellboys descended the steps to empty the Jeep, Corbett spied Rory trailing behind a puzzled Luke, who was still confused by the idea that anyone would think Michel was either kind or sweet, and certainly never both. Jess stepped off to the side and lit up a cigarette which he'd purchased when Lorelai stopped for coffee at a gas station. Luke had thrust a wad of cash into his hands earlier when they reached agreement on finances.

Suitable exclamations and compliments were issued to Rory, who knew Corbett as a young shy bellhop at the Independence Inn so long ago. She even condescended to allow herself to be hugged a little awkwardly and a little too long.

Corbett nodded sagely as he gave Luke a long look before turning to his friend. "Finally I see you have found someone who suits you. Someone worthy of all that is Lorelai Gilmore."

"He's a kindred soul; a perfect complement to my beauty and wit," she said as she tucked her arm into Corbett's and the pair preceded her entourage into the lobby. Lorelai grinned as she was immediately approached by a waiter with a tray that contained two caffe lattes and two draft beer.

She applauded, then made sure her family received their designated drinks. "You do know how to make a girl feel welcome."

They moved quickly through the lobby as Corbett escorted them to the outbuilding that contained their rooms.

"On this side is the spa. You're very fortunate that it's a slow week for us. You won't be disturbed by the other guests very much, but the whirlpool and other facilities are open 24 hours. All of your bags and boxes arrived and I set you up in the fourth room here so you can work in peace on your preparations for tomorrow." He smiled broadly. "I am so glad you came here, Lorelai. I've always wanted to find a way to properly thank you for the best summer of my teens." He pressed the keys into her hands and exited quietly.

"One hour free time, then we meet in room 202. Be prepared to work hard. We've got a lot to do before tomorrow." Handing Rory and Jess their keys, Lorelai took Luke's hand and they entered the suite that took up all of the available space on the ground floor.

* * *

A satisfied smile on his face, Luke trailed his fingers up Lorelai's arm, savoring the soft skin that came from using designer toiletries and a hot shower which had been absolutely required after their hot but speedy tryst that came after the bellboys dropped off their luggage.

"Um, wow," she said as she tried to catch her breath. "I am definitely going to like being married to you."

"Right back atcha."

Luke stretched, rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling.

"Guess what?"

Lorelai chuckled. "What?" She replied as she curled into his side like a cat lying in the sun.

"I'm really sick of this 'Guess what? We're getting married' bit."

"Oh thank god," breathed Lorelai. "I'd thought about cutting straight to the ceremony so we could stop the insanity."

"You know where to start, hon?" asked Lorelai as Luke entered Room 202 a little while later. Lorelai was busy organizing items on tables.

"Coffee, got it," he replied and went to the corner where the staff had placed a small commercial coffee maker.

"Think fast!" called Lorelai as she found and tossed the bag of Luke's coffee that she had packed. Luke moved with a hint of his baseball player's reaction time and jumped to the side, deftly catching the badly mis-thrown package.

Once the coffee was percolating, or rather dripping, since Luke regretfully accepted that drip coffee was one of those unfortunate things one had to learn to live with in this new millennium, he headed back to their hotel room to search for Lorelai's notebook.

He had hardly turned the corner when Jess and Rory came into the room after checking out the spa.

"Hey Mom," said Rory. "Spa looks great. Reminds me of the time Logan and I went to the Mystic Marriott. A little smaller, but still nice."

Strangling a half-dead daisy, Lorelai dreaded the possibility that Rory was going to spend the whole weekend making sure her mother didn't miss the Emily experience. She also blamed Logan for drawing Rory into the world of rich, back-stabbing social climbers.

* * *

Jess stretched out onto a sofa, pulled out his crumbling paperback and ignored everyone.

There it was again. That peculiar feeling. It had alternated between flutters and warmth spreading through his body all day long. Luke opened the door to the hotel room and the smell intensified the feeling. The smell of Lorelai and Luke, after. Certainly his favorite smell in the world.

He tugged on the sheets a little as he moved to Lorelai's side of the bed. Her purse lay on the floor, its contents strewn about. He snagged the yellow notebook and pocketed it.

Unfolding his lithe, well-sexed body onto the mattress, he wondered if Lorelai could be convinced to come back for a second round. He grinned. Maybe he could talk her into having sex with an unmarried man one more time tonight, because Lorelai's-getting-married sex was some of the best they'd had.

Ah, well, he thought to himself, if that falls through at least he'll have the chance to make love to his wife tomorrow.


	6. Chapter 6 Staying Zen

Chapter 6 Staying Zen

"Are you sure you want these? They seem to be dying fast." Rory picked up the daisy Lorelai had murdered and twirled the floppy flower between her fingers.

Zen, Lorelai thought. I must stay Zen. This time tomorrow I'll be getting married. Rory's under stress. Do. Not. Kill. A murder almost always spoils a wedding.

"Well hon," replied Lorelai, "We've got some choices here, and Corbett will make sure the flowers are fresh tomorrow. So which ones do you want for your nosegay? I'm thinking violets and daisies."

"A nosegay? How cute."

Lorelai sighed. "Go taste the cakes." She turned to Jess.

"Jess," she began.

"No."

"You don't even know what I want."

"I don't care. Choose what you want."

"I was thinking that maybe you and Rory should carry matching nosegays."

"Fine."

"Do you even know what a nosegay is?" asked Lorelai.

"You have no idea how many 19th century authors Rory made me read when we were dating. Nose-freaking-gays everywhere," Jess snorted. "Besides, Luke will take it away from me before the ceremony even starts."

"Take what away from you?" Luke sauntered into the room, a wide grin on his face as he gave his fiancée his 'Oh yeah, we did it' look.

He lifted Jess' legs by the hems of his jeans and made room for himself on the sofa.

"Whatcha doing, Jess? Feeling OK?" He smacked the bottom of Jess' shoes and shoved his legs about so the younger man couldn't read any more.

Jess kicked back at him in their usual playful way, adding "Leave me alo…" Realizing why Luke was behaving this way, Jess grimaced and tried to escape. "Ew! Stop that!" Luke began laughing at his nephew and continued to shove him around liightly.

"What's wrong?" asked Rory.

"They just had sex!" panted Jess, desperately trying to wiggle his way away from his uncle.

"Ew! Mom!"

"What? Luke gets a little frisky afterwards." She was proud when she brought out Frisky Luke.

"I do not get frisky," insisted Luke, laughing as he watched Jess look around wildly for an escape route. Grinning, he grabbed both of Jess' ankles and held him in place on the sofa.

"Oh please, you strut around like Foghorn Leghorn for like an hour."

Luke lifted his shoulders lightly, his grin never fading. "Well, when you…"

"Flowers!" interrupted a chartreuse-faced Rory. "Let's decide on the flowers! Right now!"

She quickly organized the various blooms, finally proposing a small bouquet of baby orchids peeking out of a bed of gardenias for herself and a slightly larger exotic bouquet reminiscent of the flowers Luke gave her at the Dragonfly test run. Lorelai settled on a single orchid for each man.

She moved to the sofa and sat on Luke's lap, causing him to break his hold on Jess. The younger man scrambled quickly to his feet and put some distance between him and his still-smirking uncle.

"There," she said as she pinned a sample boutonnière to Luke's flannel. "Now I've given you flowers. Only man I ever gave them to."

He smiled, surreptitiously patting her bottom. "Easy stat to remember."

The only decision that was truly easy to make was cake testing. In a rare show of unity, they all agreed on the same vanilla sponge with mango filling. Lorelai carefully filled out the form Corbett had given her.

"I'll run these decisions down to the guy," offered Jess, happy to finally have found a chance to go outside and have a smoke. He pointed at Rory. "You keep these two under control," he added, glaring at Luke and Lorelai.

Now in complete possession of the sofa and the TV remote, Luke quickly found a baseball game to watch. Kicking his shoes off, he stretched his legs out on the sofa and sighed. Rory took possession of an easy chair near the window and began reading.

Lorelai surveyed the table. Still lots to be done. Wine and the wedding dinner menu. Flowers for the table. Photographer and videographer. Ceremony and champagne toast locations. Cake table decorations and souvenir cake knife and server. Photo album and website. Post-wedding dinner event, and a dozen more details.

"Wine," announced Lorelai.

"No thanks," replied Luke distractedly. The game was getting interesting, with two potential base-stealers challenging the pitcher. "Beer would be good. Got any draft?"

She stared holes in the back of Luke's head, willing him to remember why they were here. They were getting married, not watching sports.

They had worked hard after the vow renewal breakup. There had been many nights of talking, not talking, arguing, and outright fighting as they found their center.

"Do you even remember why we're here?" she whined petulantly.

Something deep in the animalistic-sports part of Luke's brain began sounding the alarm, and he lifted his butt off the sofa, ready to stand up and go to her. Suddenly the guy who never got a hit got a big one. Luke pumped his fist in support, and almost sat back down, when he heard Lorelai again.

"Luke, I need you!" This was Lorelai's serious voice.

He popped up and came to her side, wrapping his arm around her waist and turning so he could still see the television screen.

When her body stiffened, he didn't need to look at her face to see the eyebrow arched in warning. He immediately turned toward the tables with the wedding decorations.

"So this is all the stuff?" he asked. Why there were three different place settings, each with their own glasses, napkins and weird tiny benches that the knives rested on. He picked one up and turned it over in his hand.

"No, these are the things we still have to choose from. These are all decisions that have to be made right now if we're getting married tomorrow."

"Huh?" he said. "I thought we bought a wedding package? A damned expensive one at that. Why do we have to make decisions?"

"So we can make it our wedding, Luke. Personalized. The Luke and Lorelai way."

"Gotcha. So what have you chosen?" He nodded affably, trusting Lorelai to have strong opinions. She'd done a good job sprucing the apartment above the diner, adding her touches, yet keeping the things that were important to him, like his curtains.

"Nothing, Luke! WE have to choose. It's our wedding!" She moved away from Luke and pointed out the three place settings, pulling the knife rest out of his hands and putting it back in its place. "Which one do you like best?"

"See? I thought that's what we paid the hotel for! So we don't have to make choices! We just write the check and get married. Presto change-o, alakazam, you are now husband and wife."

"Alakazam?" Lorelai chuckled. "Sorry hon, it doesn't work that way."

Luke scratched his head, looking at the three place settings, one formal with gold edging, one a very strange paisley pattern, and one with leaves and vines along the edge of the plates, with pink flowers interspersed between the leaves. "Whatever you want is fine with me."

"What I want is for us to decide together!" she replied hotly.

"But I don't care! They're all good!"

"They're not all good! We have opinions! This is our only wedding, Luke! You have to care!"

"I do care!" his voice echoed off the walls. "I care that the plate holds the food and doesn't break, but I don't care what they look like!"

"You don't care what our wedding looks like?" she shouted back. "What do you even want, Luke?"

"I want to be married! I want to be your husband!"

"Well I want that too! And I want our wedding to be perfect!"

Rory had heard her mother talk about her renewed relationship with Luke, and how their communication worked best at high decibel levels, but she'd never experienced it first-hand. Now seemed to be a good time to check her suitcase for a pair of ear plugs, so she slipped out the door.

"It is perfect! We're here, our most important people are with us; even Sookie is coming down tomorrow! We've got everything we want!"

"No, we don't," said Lorelai morosely.

Luke stepped closer and spoke softly. "What's missing, then?"

Lorelai's suppressed tears thickened her voice. "I want us to want to want to choose the things about the wedding so it will be the wedding we want," she sniffed.

"You want to want to want …?" Luke shook his head trying to clear it. "I don't know what that means."

"You should want to want to choose between gold-rimmed or leaf plates!" she said glumly. "Nobody in their right minds would choose the paisley."

"What's wrong with the paisley? Which one is the paisley, anyway?"

"That's the paisley," she snapped, pointing to the butt-ugly plate.

"Oh!" he cried. "Looks like it holds food. What's wrong with it then?"

Lorelai looked at her fiancé in consternation. "You like the paisley? You want the paisley for our wedding? Oh Luke, how could you?"

"How could I what? I don't care if we have the paisley!"

"Luke! It's the little things that count. Those will be the things that make our wedding special."

"Well, that's the biggest friggin' paisley I've ever seen. Nothing small about that!" he snorted.

"There's no such thing as 'a paisley!' Paisleys don't come in singles!"

"Why are we arguing about the paisley? I don't even know what a paisley is!" Luke dry-washed his face in frustration.

"You don't care about our wedding!" accused Lorelai.

"I do care about our wedding! I wouldn't be here if I didn't!"

"You aren't here if you don't want to want to choose!"

"I am choosing! I choose to be married! I want one home, one family, one life together! I can't figure out what wanting to want things that I want, which I don't actually want, even means!"

He opened the door and entered the hallway before turning to face her, both still at combat volume. Lorelai followed him quickly.

"So we need a break, right!" he shouted.

"Yes! That's how we agreed to fight!" she answered heatedly.

They moved synchronously to the door. "Where are you going?" he yelled.

"To the spa. I need a massage," bellowed Lorelai, rubbing at the tense muscles in her neck. "And you? Going to the lake, I presume?"

"Water calms me down," he yelled in agreement.

Rory crept quietly down the hall. She could see Jess at the opposite end, watching the older couple loudly arguing.

"See you later?" Lorelai asked loudly.

"When?" asked Luke.

"At least an hour for the massage," she answered just as loud.

They spun on their heels and stalked away. Before he had gone too far, Luke turned and called, "Lorelai?"

"Yeah?" she answered.

"I like the leaves with the pink flowers."

She smiled, lighting up her eyes. "Me, too."

He put up his hand in an affectionate half-wave as he returned her smile.

Jess sauntered up to Rory. "What did you do this time?" he asked.

She punched him in the arm.


	7. Chapter 7 Free Agent

Chapter 7 Free Agent

An hour later Lorelai and Luke were back in the room, working their way through the last decisions.

"I still don't like choosing," grumbled Luke.

"That's ok, sweetie. I don't like paying bills, but I do it because it's necessary." She patted his hand.

"I like paid bills. Don't like going broke."

"I know, hon. Which of these do you like?" She held up three dessert choices and grinned madly.

Eyebrow arched, he regarded her carefully before answering. He looked at each dessert in turn, then glanced up to observe her reaction before moving to the next one.

"Seems obvious to me," surmised Luke. "We want all three."

Lorelai clapped her hands. "Right answer, babe!" She marked the last choices on the order form. "I'll run these down to Corbett right after we have dessert and finish the wine."

Rory and Lorelai staged a mock battle over the dessert choices, and Jess declined the third one, so Lorelai thrust it into Luke's hands.

"I'm just holding this for you, right?" he asked.

Lorelai nodded wisely. "No! For me!" cried Rory, reaching out her free hand while the other shoveled Creme brûlée into her mouth.

Wine and desserts in hand, highlights from the last baseball game rolling on the TV, the foursome finally relaxed.

* * *

"You know, getting married is like a baseball game," philosophized Lorelai as she trolled the snack table for any overlooked non-healthy items. Scooping up a bowl of honey-glazed cashews, she nudged herself onto the sofa, deliberately crowding Luke, who good-naturedly put an arm over her shoulder. He sank back into the soft cushions, happy and content, with his family around him, his girl in his arms, and the Red Sox on the way to actually winning one.

"I gotta hear this one," commented Jess.

"It's a snap, oh skeptical delinquent," chortled Lorelai. "There are two teams, like the bride's team and the groom's team. The focus is on two people – the guy with the stick and the guy standing on the teeny-tiny hill."

"Guy with the stick?" scoffed Jess.

Lorelai tried tossing cashews up in the air, succeeding only in hitting Luke with them, whereupon he smooothly took the bowl away from her and ignored her pout without once taking his eyes off the game.

"Someone's always in white. Everyone on the sidelines is happy for their team." Lorelai tried to retrieve the cashews from Luke, who complacently held them out of her reach.

"Someone gets in a fight, and someone gets so drunk that they're barfing in the corner," offered Jess snidely.

"There are even deals, like Luke told me about trading players and stuff like that. I mean, the Durham Group came scouting and they found little ol' me."

"And now you're in salary negotiations," added Rory. "That's why they sent you that humongous gift basket."

"Well, I wouldn't say I'm in negotiations exactly, said Lorelai. More like testing the waters. What's that term, honey? Freestyle?" She pushed at Luke's thigh trying to get his attention.

"Free agent," said Luke unthinkingly, his focus on the TV screen. "Players who don't have any commitments are free agents. They can go anywhere they want, do anything they want."

He turned his head back to the screen. His mind switched back and forth between the action on the screen and lustfully recalling the action Lorelai had for him when she wore that tiny baseball shirt without a bra.

"Yes! That's it! Free agent. I'm a free agent and the Mike Armstrong is asking me to play on his team."

Jess glanced at Luke, who continued watching TV without a reaction. He lifted a hand as if he wanted to get Luke's attention, then decided to watch the next inning on the sofa play out.

"That was a great gift basket," said Rory. "The Belgian chocolates were so much better than those we had when we went to Europe." She smiled, then added, "Logan gave me some from France that were better still."

"Europe!" cried Lorelai, pointedly ignoring Ror-Emily. "Mike was talking about sending me to Scotland. Or Italy. Or both."

Rory looked at her mother in confusion. "But you're not exactly a free agent, are you?"

"Who says?" queried her mother. "I've got the Dragonfly, it's running smoothly. I can afford to take some time off, and if the Durham Group thing picks up, I can promote Michel to executive manager and hire a desk person. Then I can go anywhere I want."

Jess, whose gaze had been darting back and forth between Luke and Lorelai, caught Rory's eye with the obvious question on his face. She raised her eyebrows. Jess stood up and moved to the chair on the other side of the coffee table, because he not only had a better view of the engaged couple, but he'd be out of flailing range when Luke finally processed Lorelai's and Rory's conversation.

A series of stupid commercials from money-grubbing capitalists came on the screen and Luke began scanning his memory as he did whenever he watched TV with Lorelai and Rory. He reviewed their chatter, trying to determine if anything impacted him or if he knew enough about the topic to discuss it with them.

Luke wondered idly why Lorelai was talking about free agents. She never talked about baseball.

He grunted, remembering how Lorelai and Rory had gushed over that damn gift basket from the Durham Group. The English tea had been very tasty, though.

He growled. That damn basket came with a damn card asking Lorelai to go to work for that damn company.

Lorelai sat up straight, vibrations from Luke's growl rattling her eardrum.

"Whaddya mean you can go anywhere you want? What about the plants? Or the kids? Or your husband?" he rumbled.

Lorelai, in her best calming voice, said, "It's just mulling, sweetie. It doesn't mean what you think it means."

"Doesn't mean anything?" growled Luke. "Rachel's first postcard fifteen years ago when she ran off in the middle of the night started with 'It doesn't mean what you think it means.' Then she was gone for three years."

"Hey! I'm not Rachel! I'm not going anywhere!"

"Except Scotland! And… and Romania! And Italy!"

Rory looked at Jess. "Romania?"

He shrugged in response. "Italy, Rome, Romania, maybe. Who knows how his mind works?"

Luke launched himself off the sofa, then turned around to face Lorelai. "You're leaving Stars Hollow? How is that supposed to work when your whole family is here? Rory, me, our plants? Maybe even our kids?"

"You're not listening to me, Luke! I'm not leaving Stars Hollow. Why can't you understand that?"

"Thick skull, stubborn nature," volunteered Jess not too quietly. Lorelai gave him an unfriendly shove.

"I understand the Durkee Group wants to buy the inn and send you around the world. Why haven't you discussed this with me?" Asked Luke.

"Durkee?" grinned Lorelai. "You've been spending too much time with your spices, sugar. Teehee, sugar and spice." She slapped her knee at that one, trying to defuse what was rapidly becoming a Luke explosion.

Luke glowered. He felt his blood pressure rising. He would gladly sacrifice Jess' monthly smoking budget for a well-worn cleaning cloth and a counter to wipe. Even at the Crap Shack he could clean, or hammer, or plunge, or chase spiders until the worst of the tension had subsided. Maybe he'd even be willing to sacrifice Jess himself. Something, anything to relieve the tension.

Lorelai moved to the coffee station for a refill and Luke's heart flashed with hope. Maybe she'd drop a half-empty packet of sugar, or dribble some cream on the table. There were cloth napkins in the corner. He grabbed one and took up position just behind her.

Dammit. It was late afternoon. Lorelai drank her first coffee of the morning black, then added sugar and cream until her energy level rivaled Carl Lewis'. By mid-afternoon, though, her coffee turned black again. No drip, no sugar spill. Practically intravenous caffeine. Bumping her elbow to spill coffee wasn't going to work. Lorelai could run in five inch heels with a full cup of coffee. No drop wasted. Damn polyester napkin wouldn't have absorbed anything anyway.

"Urgh." He strangled the napkin. "I'm calm now. Practically Zen."

Lorelai sipped her life's blood and answered, "Zen? Yeah, right. Look at you. You've got pulsing veins I've never seen before."

Luke erupted. "Well what do you expect?! We're getting married and then you're going to run off to Timbuktu to look at yurts. What am I going to do about the kids? About the plants? I have no idea how to take care of a plant!"

"Uh, Luke, cuddle cakes, if I go anywhere right after we get married, and a kid is involved, I'll kinda have to take it with me. And you've got Jackson to help you with the plants."

"I don't want Jackson to take care of my plants!" roared Luke.

Calmly, Lorelai turned to Rory and Jess. "Does one of you want to take that one?"

Rory replied, "No, it's better coming from his fiancée."

Lorelai nodded and turned back to her fiancé.

"OK, well, first, dirty, and second, I'm coming back! If Mike Armstrong even makes an offer we can live with, the trips won't be long. I get to choose, Luke, and Stars Hollow is home. You and Rory are my home." A wink at Jess. "Even Jess – well, if not home, at least he's a place that I don't hate to be, like a fishing hole or a basketball court. He's way above a certain house in Hartford."

Luke pouted. Not his best look. "Rachel always said the trip won't be long. Her shortest trip was three months and 12 days long."

Gritting her teeth, Lorelai shot out, "I. Am. Not. Rachel."

"I know you're not Rachel! You're also not Nicole, either!" Luke shuddered. "Nicole was ALWAYS there, like a To Do list of crap that you really didn't want to work on."

Lorelai's now jealous anger made her eyes sparkle even more than normal. His face softened.

"You're different. You come in to the diner and you're like a supernova. Then you go off to do your Wonder Woman thing like run an inn you created yourself, or you're Supermom to Rory, or you keep Taylor from coming in the door with flyers. You're a goddamn superhero, uh, superheroine, whatever."

Lorelai melted. She knew he remembered the times when she'd shown her feet of clay, when the pedestal he'd put her on was below sea level, but he still saw her as his hero. Or heroine. An ache just behind her sternum flared as she worshiped him back. Her Man of Steel, her foundation.

Until he lost track of his thoughts and became a dick.

The bitterness welled up again. "So how long are you going to be gone the first time?" he asked snidely, pitching the balled up napkin onto a table.

Lorelai lost it. "OK! That's it! I'm done here! I'm taking a break until you can come back to me and there are only the two of us in the relationship – Luke and Lorelai. Not Rachel. Not Nicole. Just you and me, Doofus, working things out."

"Another massage?" he groused.

"No. I need ... I don't know what I need," said Lorelai tiredly, rubbing her temples. What she really needed was Luke to drop the attitude. "I'm going back to our room."

"I'm taking a walk," said Luke. "Down by the lake."

They left the building via separate doors, leaving Rory and Jess dumbfounded.

"Do you think they'll ever be able to be in a room together for twenty-four hours?" he asked.

"Don't ever ask my mom that question, because the answer is yes and you do not want to know that much about Luke," she replied. She shuddered at the memory.

"Got it," he replied. "How shall we handle this one?"

Rory shrugged and said, "You take her, I'll take him." She exited in Luke's direction.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm going to post the last chapters pretty quickly. Thanks for your reviews.


	8. Chapter 8 Rory and Luke

Chapter 8 Rory and Luke

Jess, not really wanting to confront Lorelai until she'd had time to cool off, went to the lobby, taking a seat across from the honor bar. He nodded at Corbett as he passed by, who stopped and explained to the young man how to write up the beverages he wanted and have them charged to the room.

"Enjoy yourself, Jess," said Corbett. "Lorelai has put the whole weekend on her card, so there's no need to worry about the costs."

Rory skittered into the lobby after Corbett had disappeared. "Just wanted to get Luke a beer," she said casually. She took a beer and a wine cooler, writing up her charges and slipping the paper into the box on top of the bar.

Just as quickly, she left, but not before giving Jess a bit of advice. "Mom likes tequila shots when she's stressed."

No way could an honor bar survive in Jess' neighborhood. It would be cleared out constantly, with no pieces of paper left in an honor bar box. Unable to completely ignore Luke's 'do the right thing' influence, Jess repressed feelings of guilt as he moved behind the bar, easily finding a bottle of Jose Cuervo. A whole lime sat on a tiny cutting board in the glass door fridge, so he took it out, found a knife and cut several wedges. Eventually he found salt and a pen, so he filled out the paper, grabbed some shot glasses, and left to find Lorelai.

* * *

Luke didn't hear Rory coming down the slope to the lake. His eye was caught by dragonflies, which he found slightly ironic, and tiny fish probing the plants in the water near the edge of the lake.

When Rory's phone rang, she was only a few steps away from Luke. He looked up, startled, but smiled when she handed him the beer, simultaneously greeting her grandmother.

"Hey, Grandma."

Luke took the wine cooler out of her hand, opened it and handed it back. History with Lorelai as well as his own personal experience had shown that easy access to alcohol makes it easier to deal with the elder Gilmores. Raising his bottle to clink with Rory's, they each took a long sip.

"What? No, I'm not out with Logan. Yes, we're still together. Oh, I'm with Luke. Coffee cups clinking together? Yeah, that must have been it." She rolled her eyes at Luke.

Rory nudged Luke with her toe as he sat on the edge of the deck. He shifted left, making room for her to sit down on the pristine pressure treated wood.

"Grandma, Mom's busy and we're going to meet up with her later. I probably need to go, so I'm not late."

Rory pressed her lips together as Emily continued. "No, Grandma, I'm not going to ask Mom to come to dinner." She frowned. "You fixed what?"

Now Rory was staring at Luke questioningly. "Oh! Grandma! I've got an incoming call from Logan. Bye! See ya!" and she hung up.

Turning to Luke, "Grandma got you and Mom back together?"

He snorted. "Only in Emily-land. Hard as it is to imagine, Emily-land is even more detached from reality than Lorelai-land. And that's sayin' something." He recalled her excuse to hang up. "Hey, don't you have an incoming call?"

"Oh, Luke, that was 'Get Us Off the Hook' excuse Number 1," she smiled. "I may not be as creative as Mom, but Grandma would do anything to keep me dating Logan."

"Aw geez," he grumbled. "What is she thinking?"

Rory snorted, which made Luke give a tiny smile, because that's what he imagined a kitten snorting sounded like. "She's thinking one thing - son and heir to a billionaire."

Before Luke could even begin a warm-up rant about spoiled rich kids and billionaire daddies, Rory pulled him back on task.

"What's going on, Luke?" asked Rory.

He sighed, looking at Samuel Adams' picture on the bottle. "It's supposed to be easier than this! I mean, first we got together, then suddenly my sister broke her leg and her arm and I was gone for seven weeks. Then you think everything's gonna be good and suddenly her parents throw a nuclear bomb called Christopher into the mix at their own fake wedding."

He desolately shredded a cattail, letting the tiny flakes fall into the lake.

"It's not easy for anyone, Luke" said Rory soothingly. "Think of Dean and Lindsay. It should have been easy for them, but it all got screwed up anyway." After the initial pain had ended, Rory herself was grateful to have put the insanity with Dean behind her.

"But it never ends," he insisted. "We got back together, and everything's going fine. We said all the 'I love you's' we needed to say and we started talking about getting married."

His face lit up. "Lorelai was excited about the wedding for a couple of days. She had a million ideas. She swore up and down that she wasn't inviting Emily, not even if the wedding took place in the Gilmore pool house. From there it kinda evolved into the elopement, which suits me just fine."

"The next thing I know is there's the magazine article and suddenly she's in the middle of talks with this Armstrong guy about selling the Inn and consulting for him. That's when all the Rachel stuff came up. All I could see was Lorelai standing in the diner, suitcases overflowing, 'cause she never packs light, but other than that, just like Rachel. Everything got so confusing."

Rory's phone rang again. "Sorry, Luke, it's Grandma again. It'll just take a second."

"Grandma, what's up now?" Pause. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You're in the diner right now?"

Luke looked inquisitively at her. Rory shrugged in return.

"Gimme that," he said after he watched several pained expressions cross Rory's face.

"Hello!" he barked. "No cell phones in the diner. Take it outside!"

His eyebrow lifted as Emily's voice hit dog whistle frequencies, forcing him to hold the phone away from his ear. Letting it go a moment longer, he suddenly hung up and handed the phone back to Rory.

"Find the diner's number, will ya?"

Rory quickly pressed her Luke's speed dial number.

Taking the phone back, Luke heard Caesar's voice. "That woman on the cell phone? Throw her out."

A stunned Caesar replied, "You're good, boss!" he exclaimed. He gestured to Lane, but seeing it was her friend's grandmother, quickly shook her head no and made a dash for the storeroom.

Luke grunted. "Yeah, I know all, I see all, I'm a friggin' mindreader. Stop eating pie straight out of the tin. And clean the grease trap."

He ended the call, handed the phone back to Rory, adding, "You might want to turn that off for a couple of hours."

Rory giggled.

He smiled wryly. "I kinda hate that woman."

Rory finished her wine cooler before she spoke again. Luke returned her doe-eyed half sad smile, and they let the crickets hold the stage for a moment.

"Luke," she said tentatively, "What do you like about Mom?"

"Like her? I love her!" he protested.

Rory nodded. "I know, but you've been friends so long. There have to be reasons why you stayed friends, and worked through fights, and couldn't stay away from each other even before you dated."

"Huh. Never thought about it." He tapped his empty bottle against the deck for a moment.

"God, it's everything," he began. "She walks in the diner, or in the house, and everything's better. Crazy, wild, noisy, unexplainable, but it's still better. It's, well, ... fun."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Her sacrifices to make her dreams work, from making a home for you to building an inn."

"I like her love of life, which has made me like Stars Hollow again. I can even see doing more town things because her enthusiasm is contagious." He nudged her gently. "Don't ever tell her that."

Rory smile sweetly at that very Luke-like wish.

"Out of ten thousand people in this town, she's the only one who never gave up on me, who challenges me. Whether it's about her right to drink all the coffee she wants, or to bring me out to a festival, she keeps at me like that damn small world song, until I finally get it."

Surprised at some of the topics Luke had chosen, Rory pondered them for a moment before replying. "So basically, all the things you grumble about and complain to Mom about, are the exact things you like best?"

"I guess so. So what?"

Rory smiled. "Huh. Did it ever occur to you to maybe ease up a little on the grumbling, and show a little more gratitude? Or maybe stop to realize that what she has built here is so much more than any job the Durham Group can offer? That she will never leave Stars Hollow?"

She patted his knee. "Luke, everyone needs confidence that they are doing the right thing. Even Mom, who is the most confident person I know, gets insecure around you. She worries that she's pushing you too much, or that she's preventing you from having the life you want."

"Crap." Luke hung his head in shame. "Crap. Crap. Crap. I've made her work for everything in our relationship, haven't I? Every town meeting. Everything she suggested. I always made her blackmail me to do the things she thought would be fun. I grumbled about all of them. God, I thought it was banter, but it's not. All that begging and blackmailing, it wasn't all fun for her, was it?"

Rory nodded smugly.


	9. Chapter 9 Jess and Lorelai

Chapter 9 Jess and Lorelai

Lorelai had changed her clothes again and was now sitting on the terrace outside her room. Corbett had done well, she thought, as she viewed the wooded paths and the sheltered playground on the north side of the inn. Not as well as the Dragonfly, of course, but it was a nice place. A couple of horses or a gazebo would improve things here, but it wasn't too bad, she thought, unconsciously exercising her design expertise that was so highly valued by Mike Armstrong. If only...

The clink of a bottle and shot glasses being set on the glass table next to her brought her back to her surroundings.

"Trying to get on my good side, are you?" she queried.

"Everybody oughta attempt the impossible every once in a while." He took a seat on the low stacked stone wall of the terrace.

Jess stepped over to Lorelai's side table and poured two shots.

"Got a dirty Shakespeare sonnet for me?" grinned Lorelai.

He cast his eyes over the edge of the woods and thought for a moment.

"Doubt that the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt Luke loves you."

Lorelai, blinking her eyes very fast, heaved a sigh and said, "Getting sappy in your old age, huh?"

"Hey, at least it's literature. The best you could come up with was 'Guess what?' which was so beyond lame I thought Taylor Doose had written it for you."

Individually doing their own salt and lime bits, they tapped their glasses together and downed their shots.

Jess silently poured a second round, hefted his glass at Lorelai and they drank without ceremony.

"So you think this is gonna work for you guys? All this shouting and arguing?"

Lorelai shrugged. "It works for us. Most of the time we don't yell." She grinned. "Wanna hear what we do most of the time?"

"Still weird," he commented with an eye roll.

"Show me one person in Stars Hollow who isn't weird and I might be willing to listen."

Jess gave her a long look, intended to make her think he was wise and comprehended things far beyond Stars Hollow.

The look she returned simply said, 'cut the crap.'

"What did he do?" asked Jess.

"Luke? Nothing really. It was all Emily, and he fell for it. He was all 'gotta meet your parents officially sometime' and I was 'uh-uh, bucko, never is a much better option' and I was right. He went golfing with my father and got so drunk he threw up in the bushes. My mother dissected him like she pulls bones out of fish. But nothing beat her marionette show."

Continuing required another tequila shot. "There was dancing. There was music. Rory was adorable in her tuxedo until we found her taking too much of it off in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then Christopher yelled, and Luke yelled, and they practically tore off each other's heads. I nearly got them calmed down, except Christopher spoke the magic words. Emily brought him there to get me back, told him there was still time; as if I would even consider it. I try out one little wedding dress and that's enough for Emily to call out her 'puppydog of hell' Christopher during her fake wedding, because if there's one thing Emily can't stand, beyond candlesticks incorrectly spaced, it's Lorelai being happy."

"We were so close. I stood there as my parents exchanged pretend wedding vows, and I saw Luke. Everything I wanted. I loved him. I couldn't wait to tell him. He was my whole package."

She sniffed. "I even thought I had the courage to propose. Then he and Christopher started shouting at each other and Chris said we were meant to be together, that Emily said so. Luke heard that and remembered that I'd hidden stuff from him, and it was all too much."

Jess snorted. "You are a real piece of work."

"What? Hey! He left me, you know! Mr. All In was 'all out' in the blink of an eye."

"Oh, please. You two live two minutes away from each other. You're used to being together every single day. You're both old enough to be considered adults. Yet neither of you could start the makeup process? What was holding you back? You know he always gives in to you. Always! For a guy who can bench press 200 pounds, outrun Kirk, and scare the pants off Taylor, he will always fold under pressure from you."

"It was hard." Lorelai stared at her perfectly pedicured wedding toes.

Jess huffed out a breath, feeling Lorelai's sadness. "You know he called me like every other day when you were broken up, and it wasn't like the times he called me when he was at the Ren Faire. Then he was all 'Come up here and relieve me for a few days, Jess. They're your parents.' After I said no, he would start babbling about whatever you'd told him on the phone the night before, and it was Lorelai this and Lorelai that. He talks about you more than Rory does."

He chuckled. "I wish I'd recognized that he was trying to get a few days off for a booty call with you. I would have given him hell, but I would have relieved him." He narrowed his eyes before adding, "So he could relieve you."

"Dirty!" laughed Lorelai.

Ignoring her, Jess continued. "But after your breakup, he'd call and discuss anything but you. It wasn't until he talked about working on some school play that I realized he was back in the game, trying to connect with you again."

Lorelai pouted. "I wish you'd let him come home. I really needed him. Things were hard, then, too," she replied morosely, remembering her separation from Rory and missing Luke.

Jess' eyebrows popped a little higher. "You go all girly when you get a boyfriend, don't you? You go from independent single mother to some bimbo unable to take action on her own. Why didn't you go there? Four hours up, four hours back. You could have had your booty call and been back at work the next day. You could have met him halfway."

"Like I said, it was hard!" she insisted.

"From what Rory said, you once knew what hard meant. Living in that shed, money never enough for both food and clothing."

Lorelai straightened her shoulders a little, but remained silent. Jess spoke again.

"But even then, it only looked hard. You always had a backup, either in Mia or your parents. You don't really know what it's like to be evicted, or see your mother lying on the floor in her own vomit when you're eight years old and have no one to help you."

"Jess." Instantly moved to compassion, Lorelai saw a glimpse of what might have been, had she and Rory landed somewhere other than the Independence Inn or Stars Hollow. "You had Luke. He would never have let you down."

"I didn't. Not without a phone number, or even a phone." Unwilling to discuss this further, he poured a shot and walked onto the grass, making a loop around the playground.

Lorelai watched the young man, seeing how easily she might have failed. How hard work, gumption, and persistence had prevented that. How those around her had helped, from Mia and the townies, Luke included, to her father mailing her envelopes with cash every once in a while.

Eventually Jess stepped back up on the slightly elevated terrace, side-stepping the planters framing the steps.

"We did figure it out eventually," murmured Lorelai, staring at a planter near Jess. "Luke said he needed time, but he didn't say how much time, and he never came to me. So late one night I called him. I was a complete chicken, though. All I said was, 'Have you had enough time yet?' and I hung up."

"I kept calling. As the nights went by, I got more courage. I asked if we could be friends again one day. If we could ever make up, could ever be to each other what we once were. He never said a word because I hung up so quickly. Then, the night before we made up, he jumped in before I could speak. He said, 'Yes, I want it. I want everything. I just don't know how.' The next day we found our way to each other again."

"See? That's Lorelai Gilmore. Bravest person I ever met."

"Me? I'm the bravest person you met? Why that?"

"You let me date your daughter, didn't you?"

* * *

Not too much later, Jess and Rory passed each other, Jess returning from Lorelai and Rory returning from Luke.

"Well?" demanded Rory. "Is the wedding still on?"

"I'm going to dust off my tux," replied her friend. "Watch your language. No bawdy toasts."

 **YAAN (Yet Another Author's Note)** : Luke throwing up in the bushes pays tribute to Scott Patterson reportedly being very ill during the filming of the golf scenes and he did really toss his cookies.


	10. Chapter 10 Reconciliation

Chapter 10 Reconciliation and wedding

The nearby mountains cast shadows on the ground of the inn. Lorelai, who had gone back to the room and gotten fresh coffee, stood on the terrace, watching the forest being overtaken by the night.

The breeze carried the scent of his aftershave to her long before she was enveloped from behind by his warm arms; his body pressed comfortingly against her back.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself."

"Did you know your daughter is kinda smart?"

She smiled. "Well everybody except for one deranged publishing billionaire thinks so."

Luke squeezed her tighter. "Even billionaires can be stupid. Hey, do you know how to get a billion dollars?"

"Start with two billion?" she giggled.

Luke sighed. "I will never outsmart you, will I?" He rocked her back and forth, enjoying the softness and scent of her hair.

"Is that such a bad thing?"

"Nah, not really. As long as it doesn't affect my reputation, you can have all the brains in this family. You and Rory, that is."

Lorelai reached one arm up to caress Luke's cheek. "So how did my brilliant progeny amaze you now?"

He kissed her palm sweetly, feathering his lips across her hand. "She reminded me of something that you have that Rachel never had."

"A loud mouth, coffee addiction, and quite possibly ADHD?"

He chuckled.

"The ability to identify eight different hues of white tablecloths? To dance backwards in five inch heels? To eat four Thanksgiving dinners in one day?"

He rolled his eyes.

"I can go on forever, you know. We haven't even started on the names I've given to your possessions and, um, certain aspects of your body."

"OK, OK! I give!" He suddenly let go of her, opening his arms in a sign of defeat. Sighing, he walked over to one of the planters and pulled out a weed.

"Here," he said confidently, placing the plant in her hand.

"I've got a plant? Rachel never had a plant?" Puzzled, she decided to make the best of it and grinned, waving the weed under Luke's nose, who quickly swatted it away.

"Look Luke! I've got a plant! I bet Rachel never had one of those!"

"Lorelai," he growled. Both words and actions were failing him now.

Happy that he'd been warmed up to growling stage, Lorelai knew that he'd push to make his point, so she stood there smirking, watching him build a full head of steam.

"Roots, Lorelai, roots! You've got roots!" he burst out.

Batting her eyes innocently, she patted the part in her hair. "Luke. You're never supposed to tell a girl you can see her gray roots."

"What are you talking about?"

She grabbed him and hugged him hard. "Just kidding, sweetie. Explain it, preferably in more than 25 words."

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he began haltingly. "Well, Rory, you know, um, wanted to know if I like you."

"IF you like me? How can you marry me if you don't?"

He shook his head. "No, what I meant is what I like about you." He looked at her uncertainly. "Not if, but what."

"Ah, a very short list."

"Hey, no! It was a really long list. Rory was surprised. But it really comes down to roots."

He took the weed back from her, brushed off some of the dirt, and showed her the most delicate, finest roots they could still see in the near-darkness.

"See all these little things? It's the stuff that really keeps you grounded. You know, the big roots are you, and Rory …"

"And you," she reminded him gently.

"And me," came the gruff acknowledgement. "But all these little things, the ones that feel like hair, they're the ones that keep you here. Look. They're so tightly woven together it's impossible to tear them apart."

He heaved a breath. "It's the little things, like having Babette look out for you, and festivals, and volunteering, and knowing you can sweet talk your way into a quick dry cleaning at Pasquale's."

"You go to work every day in the town you live in. You built the inn, and, even though I feel like saying 'God help us' sometimes, it's beautiful, and profitable, and totally Lorelai. You breathe in and out and your heart beats with the same rhythm that the town does."

"Rory's gonna go out on her own someday, and she'll take a piece of her root with her. But she'll always have a piece of you and this town. Thinking of her moving somewhere else is what made me realize that, even if you work for the Durham Group, you will never leave Stars Hollow forever."

"So you do get it."

He grinned lopsidedly. "I hope so," he murmured as his hands took possession of her again, reaching underneath her shirt to feel her soft, heated skin.

* * *

Luke smiled lazily as a delightfully naked Lorelai came around the corner of the bed, then nudged herself into a spooning position.

Leaning up on her elbow, she opened a bottle of oxygenated water and handed it to Luke. "Did I ever tell you that I love that you are an antidisestablishmentarian?"

Downing half the bottle, he set it on the nightstand. "Not the Rory words. No brain power," he groaned exhaustedly. "Long words not good." Their last round, and he hoped the next to last round of premarital sex had been enthusiastic, fun, and draining.

"Well not technically antidisestablishmentarian," she continued, "That's just a word I learned in sixth grade that I can never get out of my head."

"Uh-huh."

"You don't like town stuff. You don't like Taylor's stupid laws."

"I like you." He smiled crookedly.

She dismissed his mumbling with a pat on his butt. "You don't believe in the bride and groom being apart the night before the wedding. For that thing especially, I thank you."

"Welcome." His gravelly voice hummed in her body as he pulled her close. The springtime fresh scent of her hair was lulling him to sleep. He breathed deeply and nuzzled her neck.

"I mean, some traditions are simply illogical," she said, sipping her water.

"Tradition is a trap." Luke tried to start one of Lorelai's favorite rants, but in the end he could muster nothing more than a tired arm lift and a "head in the sand" mumble as he buried his head in the pillow.

Sleep overtook them both until the Pippi Longstocking theme signaled the arrival of a new email in Lorelai's phone. Mike Armstrong.

She read and re-read the mail. "All other things in the contract remaining the same, we can surely accommodate your preference for short trips of no more than two weeks at a time." She almost clapped her hands from happiness.

Snuggling back into Luke's arms, she looked over the list of things the Durham Group wanted her to evaluate. Most things made sense, like location, décor and other things she'd given special attention to as she built the Dragonfly. She blinked twice when she read architecture and soundness of construction, and blinked three times when she read outdoor activities and wilderness areas.

"Hey, Luke," she said softly, knowing that if he were in his deep sleep, almost nothing could wake him.

"Mmm?" He rolled onto his back, his hand finding her hair on its own initiative. "What's up?" Not opening his eyes, he drew the sheet over the two of them.

"You like the wilderness, right? Like bears and rattlesnakes and poison ivy and Mountie hats and Bowie knives and fishing?"

Luke squinted. "Had poison ivy on my ass once. Running naked in the woods is a bad idea." He involuntarily scratched his butt, ready to sleep again.

Lorelai giggled. "We'll come back to that story sometime, hon. But you could go someplace and figure out if the wilderness is good, right?"

Pushing himself up until he leaned against the headboard, he asked, "Wilderness is wilderness. It's neither good nor bad. What's this about?"

"I was wondering if you'd come with me on my trips. You know, to give me advice on the buildings and outdoor recreation areas."

"Hire a building inspector."

"Mike will do that when they're actually making the deal. I'm the front woman, the one who susses out all the things they'll hide when the negotiations start."

"So knock on the walls and flush the toilets. That's probably enough."

"Luke!" Lorelai pouted. "I never did any of that for the Dragonfly. You're the one who came and looked at the building. You could do that again."

"I hate doing the same thing over and over again."

The coughing fit Lorelai began at that bare-faced lie was interspersed with accusations of 'compulsive liar!' and 'bullpuckey!'

She knew he only needed the right incentive. "By the way, the first three locations are Vermont, Colorado and Montana." Montana and its national parks had been at the top of Luke's list for possible honeymoon locations, and even though they'd never use a business trip for a honeymoon, having Montana as a business trip would open up other honeymoon possibilities.

"I can't be away for a long time," he grunted.

"You won't have to. You can come for a couple of days. We'll get the work out of the way and can explore on our own. Then you can fly back home and I'll finish all the inn research."

Luke warmed up to the idea of long weekends in those places he'd never taken the time to visit before, and was soon on board with that idea, and began getting some canoodling ideas of his own.

Canoodling was briefly interrupted by a waiter bringing the bride and groom to be a morning wake up greeting. Champagne, orange juice, danish and fruit fortified them until they could delay getting up no longer.

"Hey," said Luke as Lorelai used a razor to touch up the rough edges of his scruff. "You still thinking no more kids? 'Cause I can live with that, you know, the plants and everything."

"Hold still and stop talking or I might accidentally garrot you," she warned. Rinsing the razor and setting it down, she added, "I'm kinda undecided a little, but it's mostly a leaning toward no kids. But I saw you yesterday, and that kinda hit me right in the ovaries a little."

Luke's heart leapt with excitement. The discussion wasn't over yet. Maybe it would lead to kids, maybe it wouldn't. He did know one thing for sure - he could make it work either way. He WOULD make it work. His priority was his current family. Lorelai, Rory, Jess and Liz were here, and if it stayed that way, then fine.

* * *

Tucked away in a slightly secluded corner of the lobby, the pair watched the excitement at the front desk. There was shouting. Arms waving. Demands being made and refused. Papers were waved under the other person's nose.

Lorelai dashed into the room, stopping suddenly beside the alcove where Jess and Luke had taken up residence. She followed their gaze to the front desk. Glaring at them, she ran towards the arguing pair.

"Lorelai!" they called in unison. Corbett and Sookie pointed accusingly at each other.

"Don't even start!" commanded Lorelai. "Sookie, you swore on a stack of Dragonfly napkins that you would handle the Stars Hollow reception, without interference from anyone, and you would leave the wedding up to me and Corbett."

"Have you tasted his chef's lobster bisque? It's like ketchup!"

Lorelai the chef whisperer dodged and reinterpreted Sookie's complaints.

"Look, hon, this is a little pre-reception dinner. You're the main event, the one all of Stars Hollow is eagerly anticipating," she said, crossing her fingers inside her head, if heads even have fingers.

Since they'd eloped, no one in Stars Hollow was even aware of the event, much less had even started shopping for flannel and plaid wedding gifts. Acknowledging that Lorelai had saved the big show for her, Sookie repressed the desire to start a wedding registry at the nearest Target store and coaxed her friend to find Jackson and their room.

* * *

Corbett proved once again that he was a skilled inn manager by getting the wedding party in place and on time. His decorations were impeccable, the sun set on schedule; even the crickets muted their chirps as the music, managed by Lane, began.

Sookie led the march down the aisle, a slight waddle betraying her Matron of Honor and advanced pregnancy status. Rory stepped proudly to the end of the stone-paved path next, ready to fulfill her Maid of Honor role, when the wedding was crashed.

Just as Lorelai was ready to take center stage, the uproar began.

Popping out of the bushes to her right, a pair of ducks and their ducklings found their way onto the stone path. Quacking and bustling down the path, Lorelai burst into laughter as Rory screeched and began moving faster.

Luke's stoic nervous grimace cracked into a half smile at Rory's antics, bursting into the rarely seen Luke grin as Lorelai caught up to the last duckling, tagging behind the other. "Hello Jeremy, are you crashing my wedding?" She scooped it up and nestled it next to her flowers before gliding elegantly to the covered deck.

"Luke, it's a sign!" she crowed.

"A sign of what? Poor animal control?" Twinkling eyes belied his cantankerous statement.

"A blessing on our union, Lukey. Ducks mate for life, remember? We'll stay married for life."

"The blessing of the ducks," murmured Jess to Rory.

Lorelai tried to hand her bouquet to Rory, but was met with a squeak until she removed the duckling.

"Remember Swan Lake?" she murmured to Luke, glancing at Jess as she recalled Luke's story of Jess being 'beaked' by a swan. Luke gently lifted the duck from Lorelai's bouquet.

He nodded, grinned, then thrust the duckling into Jess' hands.

By that time, the concerned duck parents had realized one baby had gone astray, which they quickly discovered in Jess' hands.

The ducks attacked, wings outspread, quacking noisily, headed straight for the Best Man. His screech was on a par with Rory's, enhanced by his running away from the ducks until he realized he should put the baby down.

Unfortunately, the ducks had him cornered, since he had inadvertently run to exactly their favorite spot at the lake. It was either step into the water or face another beaking.

"There," said Rory pragmatically as she approached Jess and his downy attackers. "Sometimes the princess saves the prince." She waved her nosegay and drove off the parents, who gathered their brood and swam grumpily away.

"They were coming after me," he grumbled as he allowed himself to be put back into line.

Luke breathed in the fresh lake air, letting the ceremonial things that meant more to Lorelai than to him float over him. Instead, he memorized each movement she made, watching her enjoy each moment.

Forever etched in his heart was the moment when Lorelai turned to give Rory her bouquet. Mother and daughter closed ranks, heads touching. Truly his family now.

* * *

The moment arrived for the pair to exchange their personal vows.

Luke shuffled his feet, finally planting them as firmly as the roots of a plant as he took both of Lorelai's hands in his.

"Lorelai, it used to be, I wouldn't do things. I wouldn't say things. I wouldn't commit. From the time we became friends, you didn't let me get away with that anymore. Sometimes you dragged me kicking and screaming into stuff, but the fact is, I don't ever want to not be there to pour your coffee and to help you when you need me. Lorelai, the best moment every day is when we wake up and I see that you still love me."

A quack from one of the parents brought Luke's glorious smile to his face.

"If it takes a duck to prove to you I'll always be there for you, then bring on the damn ducks!"

Lorelai pulled both of Luke's hands to her mouth and kissed them tenderly before swallowing her tears and looking him directly in the eye.

"Angel. Friend. Lover. Duck wrangler. You are all of these things to me."

She sucked in a nervous breath. Squeezing Luke's hands, she continued with a shaky laugh.

"And sneaky, too. You drew me in with the world's best coffee, and handyman skills beyond compare; even my kid took a shine to you early on. As we slowly became friends, you were the only one who both believed in me and called me out when I needed it, mostly because I was acting like an over caffeinated Chihuahua."

"One day I woke from a night with the zucchini, and a prince clambered out of his green Chevy steed and stood before me with a nervous smile and feet big enough to make all the girls jealous. He pulled a magic straw from my hair and asked me out on a date."

"Here we stand, my Luke, after a bumpy ride, but I'm thrilled and overjoyed to have you be my partner for the rest of the journey."

* * *

"Do it again! Do it again!" cried Sookie. The rest of the wedding party thumped their forks on the table to encourage Luke, more than a little tipsy and breathing hard from too many repetitions of "Gorgeous Petey! Gorgeous Petey!"

"No, I'm done," he said, "Give Petey a rest." Wrapping his arm around his equally tipsy wife and nuzzling her hair as he gazed out over the lake, now shadowed in darkness except for the candlelit skiff decorated with flowers that the happy couple had launched with good wishes written by those in attendance at the wedding.

Finally Luke finally felt safe. Since the deaths of his parents and Liz' descent into drugs, he'd felt unsafe in what was perhaps the safest town on the planet. Everyone he was close to left him, in one way or another. He fought back with a brusque personality and kept everyone at arm's length.

His yo-yo relationship with Rachel occasionally pushed him off-balance. The only thing he could rely on with her was that she would leave, and she would come back.

Every time he began to feel like they were on track, that maybe it didn't really matter that the toilet seat was always down and the milk curiously ended up in the vegetable crisper while her film took priority space on the shelf, she changed it up. A phone call and she suddenly had to tidy up her camera bag, then the announcement. "I can't pass this job up."

After several cycles of this, Luke didn't even listen anymore. It was in Kazakhstan or some Eastern European country he'd never heard of. It didn't matter anyway, because she wouldn't stay in touch. They were free agents. The way she wanted it.

Luke snorted as he recalled the baby and Durham Group arguments with Lorelai, happy that they knew how to work through these things and both were committed to their relationship first. After all they'd been through, from friendship to love, they'd spun a cocoon of themselves and Rory. They had already weathered the worst Emily Gilmore could throw at them. Now married, they were finally truly safe.

"Luke, honey, are you asleep?" Lorelai turned her head to speak softly in his ear.

"Not asleep. Holding you up so you don't fall over in a dead drunk." Better to say that than to admit that he couldn't let go of her, that he was as perfectly happy and he'd ever dreamed he could be.

"You're not going to finish that, right?" She speared the leftover chunk of prime Angus beef filet and put it on her plate. "Surf and turf is the most perfect wedding meal ever!" She crowed as she carefully stacked a morsel of butter-drenched lobster onto a bit of steak and savored her new first food love. "We are going to eat this every day, OK?" she urged.

Luke wasn't going to refuse her anything at this moment. "Sure."

Lorelai winked at Rory. "How about a closet for my shoes?"

He grinned and nodded, taking another sip of brandy.

"My very own cheesecake?"

"You've already had that," he grunted.

"Well, three desserts and wedding cake will have to do. " She smirked. "How about a puppy?"

"Lorelai."

Before they could reach eye-roll levels of sappiness, a cell phone rang. Between the dancing, and candlelit boat christening and sendoff, and all of the alcohol imbibed that evening, evening wraps, bags and shoes were strewn about in mixed piles. Everyone more or less capable of standing began searching for the ringing cell.

Like a drunken game of Twister, Jess, Rory, Lane and Jackson scrambled on the ground until finally Jess retrieved the ringing phone. He answered it, blinked a few times, then silently handed it to Lorelai.

Putting the phone to her ear, she listened for a moment, then grimaced. "Mom?" said Lorelai, squeezing her eyes shut hoping to make the phone completely disappear.

Luke groaned. "I kinda hate that woman," he said involuntarily and a little too loudly. The others snickered.

"Yes mom, uh huh. No, not coming back to dinner." She widened her eyes as she glanced at Luke.

"Nope. Got other things to do. "

"Got to send cards, change my driver's license and my bank accounts. "

"Well, sure that takes time. And I've reserved Friday nights for that work."

"No, I'm not moving, mom. There are other reasons to change a driver's license."

"Nope, not petitioning the court to get rid of the Gilmore name. Found an easier way to do that."

Jess poured Luke another brandy, which he downed all at once.

"Right first time, mom! You win... you win..." She spied the fruit bowl and grabbed a piece and adding triumphantly, "You win a banana!"

Lorelai sighed after Emily had prattled on for a bit. "Of course it's Luke, mom. Who else could it be? Surely you remember the guy I've been living in sin with, don't you? Wait! Don't answer that. Luke? Luke, honey, say 'Hi, mom.'"

"Hi, mom" he echoed dutifully, holding his brandy glass ready to self-anesthetize.

Lorelai put the phone back to her ear, then moved it away again. Emily was shouting. She looked at the wedding party and took another sip of champagne. "Just letting her get it out of her system."

When Emily's voice grew softer, Lorelai listened again.

"Yes, it's real. I really did it. I'm married, mom, just like you always wanted me to be. Call me Sadie. "

"No, mom, I didn't change my first name, just my last one. Pause. Because Danes is easier to spell. It takes so long to write out G...I...l...m...o...r.."

She stomped her foot. "You didn't let me finish, mom. E. G-I-L-M-O-R-E. See what I mean? That takes so long! Even you can't wait."

Trying to provide comfort, Rory snuggled up to her mom, Luke supporting Lorelai on her other side.

"You know what mom, I gotta go. Still having my wedding dinner, then afterwards there's all the married sex. Got to have that. Maybe we'll make you another grand baby."

"Seriously? Until this moment you thought I was sober? Do you not understand how much alcohol it takes to converse with Emily Gilmore? I mean, there's a reason dad has all the good whiskey and brandy in his study. Can't have a Gilmore family evening on less than a double."

"I can't besmirch the Gilmore name anymore, mom. I've got to spend the next few years besmirching the Danes family name. Maybe Rory will step up and become the reigning Lorelai Gilmore. I'm keeping the title reigning Lorelai, but she can be the reigning Gilmore. I bestow my crown and title on her. "

Lorelai placed the table's flower wreath on Rory's head. Rory sat up straight and began the royal wave.

"Bye, mom. Gotta go, I think the reigning Lorelai Leigh Gilmore is staging a coup to take the reigning Lorelai crown."

She ended the call and slid the phone across the table.

"Well, my mother knows we're married," she said regretfully. "I was hoping to keep that a secret for another decade or two."

When the phone began to ring again, Lorelai and Rory did rock-paper-scissors. Loser answered the phone.

Lorelai sighed. "Dad? Hi. Uh huh. Uh huh. Really? Thanks. "

Turning in her seat, she stage whispered to Luke, "He actually congratulated us!"

"Oh, really, Dad? You heard that with your own ears? Not gonna happen."

"Oh. Interesting. Well, that is an incentive, I suppose." She looked at Rory.

That's the only string? One time only? But just the way mom wants it? She glanced at Luke, sizing him up, wondering if he could handle her dad's proposal.

She sighed. "Deal."

"Give us a few days first. Two weeks is great, Dad." Lorelai smiled weakly as she ended the call and turned to her loved ones.

She shrugged adorably. "Oops. It looks like we're going to have a Hartford reception as well."

"What?" asked Luke.

"I agreed to let my mother throw us a wedding reception. She'll come to Stars Hollow in two weeks to show us the plan."

Rory gasped. "Mom! What did you do?"

Bought you a free ride, loin fruit. At least my first loin fruit, probably. Maybe. She patted Luke's knee.

Luke's eyes widened as he absorbed her words. Maybe? Baby?

Rory's eyes narrowed. "You're going to play dress-up doll for Grandma?"

"Yep. With my beautiful Luke doll by my side. Tuxedo or morning coat, I'll let you know what Emily decides, hon." She patted Luke's hand sweetly as he groaned.

"Mom, why are you doing this?"

"Because your grandfather just offered to fully pay for Yale. Your loan deal with him is over. Kaputt. You are no longer an indentured grandchild."

"But you are, mom. I didn't want that. You know how grandma will be with this reception."

"Oh, I know. But it's one night, sugar. Plus a fitting. Or ten. And a few party planning meetings. Ok, it's a lot. But it will be over soon, and you can continue at Yale, not having to worry about paying them back."

"But mom, I'm not going back to Yale."

"Tell that to your grandfather. Oh! Do it in Stars Hollow so I can see his face."

Lorelai giggled. "Even if you don't go back right now, it still means that your first two years are already paid for. And when you do decide to go back to school, it's also paid for."

Jess pushed away some dirty dishes and laid out the last of the liquor and champagne bottles.

"Now," he said, "Who gets the privilege of sitting next to Emily Gilmore?"

"Kirk!" called out Sookie.

"TJ," added Luke, earning a thumbs-up from Jess.

"Well aren't we lucky," chortled Lorelai. "She just happens to have two sides at the table. The seating chart has been started! Now, how about Richard?"

* * *

Some hours later, after copious amounts of marital sex:

Luke was still so stoked by Lorelai's 'Maybe baby' declaration that he couldn't sleep. He caressed Lorelai's arm, smiling. "You changed your mind?

Her eyes twinkled mischievously but he cut her off before Lorelai could tease him. "I mean about kids. You changed your mind about kids?"

She nodded. "It was two things. I looked at Rory and saw how great she is, and began to imagine what our kids would be like. They will be just as amazing."

She fingered the sheets, still thoughtful.

"Then I remembered my pregnancy. It was awful. If I wasn't being told I was eating the wrong thing, or doing the wrong thing, Emily was reminding me how I'd ruined their good name. Every single day."

Turning trusting eyes to Luke, "Just once, I'd like to be pregnant and enjoy it. Having people around me who are happy for me, and not calling me a failure. Having a baby shower. Being able to argue over names with you. Lucas is on the list, by the way."

"Take it off the list," he growled.

"Having you and Rory there to take care of me, and to dream about the family we're building. And the family we will be after the baby is born. I thought I'd kind of enjoy that."

"Me, too," he replied, then kissed her lovingly.

An incoming email alert sounded on Lorelai's phone. She opened it, read it, and shut the phone off completely.

"And one more item checked off the To Do list."

She pushed Luke back on the bed and straddled him.

"Who was that?" he asked, sliding down into their "perfect fit" position, pressing up gently, signaling his readiness.

"Mike Armstrong. He was getting really pushy, reminding me that the job with the Durham Group is contingent on me selling him my controlling share of the Dragonfly."

"And?"

"I'm not giving up my Dragonfly. My vision. My creation. Anyway I'll be too busy enjoying my family."

"Yes you will," he agreed.

And they proceeded to enjoy once again.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Shoutout to Trogdor19 for the secret room metaphor in her oneshot Ghosts of Love's Future. Even though a direct use of the metaphor got lost in editing, it was the inspiration for this story.

Ghosts of Love's Future is probably the most tender, loving response any Lorelai has ever had to her and Luke's date at Sniffy's.

This was a long time in process. It started when I was still in a chemo fog, and took all year to finish. Everything's clear on the cancer front. There are lots of places I'd like to go with elements of this story, especially with Rory's unfinished storyline, but don't count on anything.

FIN


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